


The Opposite of Drowning

by orphan_account



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Gen, Whump, h/c, hints of Illya/Gaby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4750067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "One of the boys get captured and interrogated, and the rest of the team turn up to save him. They make it out, guns blazing, and are on the run.</p><p>Except then it turns out the captured agent had been unknowingly poisoned, and once the effects kick in it becomes a mess of struggling to keep him alive while hiding from their enemy and trying to find their way to safety."</p><p>Illya whump, pure and simple, with a side of Napoleon whump in later chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At this point, Napoleon isn’t sure what to expect.

Two weeks ago, they somehow lost track of Gaby on a raid at an estate in Tuscany. When she did not rendezvous with them at the hotel as planned, Ilya had expressed all his customary rage. Napoleon spoke reassuringly but slept like shit that night. As it turned out, even that was an overreaction — they found her the next afternoon tied to an overstuffed armchair. Evidently, her captor had read her medieval love poetry and insisted she share a bottle of wine. _I’ve had worse dates_ , she quipped. 

Then, last week, Napoleon himself was detained by a Slavic organization with more traditional ideas about hostage-taking. They broke his left pinkie and ring finger, and had even gone so far as to telephone the state department (something something _political prisoners_ , Napoleon heard through the haze of pain), but Illya had interrupted before they could describe who, precisely, they had strapped to their chair. Some indeterminate time later, he was back at the hotel, where a doctor was wrapping his fingers. Once it was declared that there would be no permanent damage, Waverly shuffled him off to bed with a bottle of excellent Scotch.

He had slept, and drank, and tried to convince himself that the ugly white stump would eventually resolve into two working fingers. Somehow, he made his train to Prague. When Illya did not return from some light surveillance at a lab outside of town, it did not surprise him. 

In fact, it seemed perfectly obvious. Inevitable, even. 

-

The lock on Illya’s cell is all of half a minute’s work. It clicks and he continues to fumble with it, watching Gaby; from the end of the corridor, Gaby watches him. She wears a black jacket (standard issue, approximately three sizes too big) and an expression that hides nothing. If he had had his way she’d be waiting at the hotel, or in the car, or anywhere else but this literal, honest-to-god dungeon, but he hadn’t had much say in the matter. Waverly had caved after she had thrown a leaded crystal tumbler with what he described as “admirable accuracy”.

It’s true that she does need experience with extractions. It is significantly less true that she needs experience with this particular extraction, especially given the unknown condition of their target. For Illya to have been taken at all is more worrying than he’d care to admit, which is why he has stationed her at the end of the corridor with orders to watch for guards. It's bullshit, of course. From day one he and Illya have maintained an unspoken agreement to spare her the worst of it, if they can, but their agreement is predicated upon Gaby upholding a second, even less spoken agreement that she will accept whatever feeble distraction they can think to provide. Generally, she takes it with good grace, though she is presently gnawing on a hangnail and looking downright mutinous.

“You never know — maybe he’ll be sipping a nice Burgundy,” he says. It comes out even more inane than it sounded in his head.

She narrows her eyes and spits out the nail. 

Swallowing, he turns back to the cell. He braces his arm against the heavy, half-rusted door. “The cavalry has arrived,” he murmurs under his breath, swinging it open. There is no time for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the cell, because all six and a half feet of Illya are suddenly in his face, then shouldering past him, out into the corridor. Napoleon’s eyebrows shoot up. He quickly tallies half a dozen cuts and bruises on Illya’s face; turtleneck, trousers, two arms, ten fingers. With the exception of his hat and shoes, Illya appears to be entirely — strangely— intact.

It’s … unexpected. Anticlimactic? A bit outside of his experience, to be honest. Usually there are some chains, or ropes, or electrical cords, not to mention a few broken bones. Unconsciously, Napoleon runs one finger over the tape still wrapped around his left hand. Illya stalks barefooted down the corridor, then stops and turns.

“Are you coming?” he says brusquely. No “I’m glad to see you”, no “thank you”. Napoleon crosses his arms and almost falls into a smug reply — _it’s good to have you back, Peril_ or even a pointed _you’re welcome_ — but there’s something that catches him. There is no playfulness to Illya’s voice, no goading smirk. Napoleon goes still.

“Everything alright, Peril?” he asks carefully.

“I’m fine.” 

He certainly looks fine. Maybe they got here just in time. And yet —

“You sure?” 

Illya scoffs. That, at least, is familiar. Gaby takes this as her cue. She rushes toward him, all prior agitation forgotten. She comes to a stop in front of his bare feet; she looks from them to his face, one hand hiding her smile.

“Everything alright?” she repeats softly. She rises on tip-toes to touch a long scratch running down Illya’s cheek. 

“Good now,” he says. He tries to return her smile, but it somehow looks … wrong. A bit strained, perhaps. Napoleon cocks his head, trying to deduce what, exactly, is making him so damn uneasy. He waits for Gaby to comment, to acknowledge that something is odd, but she seems distracted by relief. Then there’s a noise that sounds like footsteps above them, and he’s abruptly reminded there are still approximately four acres of laboratories above their heads. 

Illya looks up, too, tracing the path of the steps. He seems alert, capable of keeping up. Napoleon decides to take him at his word — if he says he’s fine, fine.

“Shall we?” he says, taking off down the corridor. Illya nods and Gaby sprints ahead, pausing to peer around the corner. She waves them forward, and the three of them jog past half a dozen empty cells. They reach the base of the stairs and Napoleon is going for his Walther in anticipation of what lies above when he hears it: a grunt of pain, then the deep bass thump of knees hitting the thick steel plate at their feet. He turns. Illya is bent double, his eyes squeezed shut. Gaby kneels beside him. Tentatively, she touches his back.

“Still ‘fine’?” Napoleon asks, gazing down at the two of them. Illya glares up at him. So does Gaby. 

He gives a long-suffering sigh and drops to a crouch at Illya’s other side. This explains it, at least. Except he has no idea what _it_ is.

Illya is breathing fast, through his nose. There’s sweat on his brow, and Gaby places her hand there, then his neck, feeling for a fever. Napoleon frowns and probes Illya’s side, searching for a wound. Illya’s fingers clutch at his belly, so Napoleon gently prises them apart. He expects blood; he finds nothing. He gives a few pokes to Illya’s back that are harder than strictly necessary. The fact that Illya tolerates this exploration is more worrying than anything else. Their eyes meet above Illya’s head — Gaby gives a baffled little shrug.

“What is it?” she asks, stroking the short hair at the nape of his neck.

His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Hurt,” he grinds out, after a moment. Despite the vague nature of the statement, Napoleon sees relief reflected in Gaby’s eyes. Hurt is something they can fix. Gaby’s already counting out pills, but Illya blindly pushes her hand back. 

“Where are you hurt?” Napoleon prompts. Another long moment passes, in which he observes Illya’s fingers spasm at his side. The footsteps sound comes again; it sounds like one, maybe two, though not running, yet.

“Not where,” Illya says finally.

“Maybe not the best time for riddles, Peril,” Napoleon says mildly. They need to get Illya up and out, sooner rather than later. He reaches for Illya’s arm, but this time Illya swats him away. Napoleon steps back. His patience is fraying.

Slowly, Illya rises to his feet. He stands there briefly, panting and clutching his middle, then he sways, which gives way to a drunken lurch. Napoleon and Gaby improvise: they each grab an arm. Napoleon does his best to guide the three of them to the wall. Gaby gives a little ‘oof’ as she bounces off it. Napoleon shoots her a look of apology. Illya, however, slumps against the concrete. He’s going down fast, Napoleon realizes. 

“Where is it?” he tries again, shaking Illya’s shoulder. Napoleon is not even sure he is still entirely conscious; his eyelids are fluttering, but above them, his eyebrows are drawn together in an unmistakable knot of pain. Napoleon catches Gaby’s eye, and he must look at a total loss for what to do next because she winds up and slaps Illya. Hard.

He gasps. He blinks rapidly. It’s like a wave has passed, or maybe she has startled him out of whatever fit has gripped him. Gradually, he focuses on her.

“Where. Are you. Hurt,” she enunciates carefully.

He slips a little further down the wall, his chin tilted up to her. His expression has cleared for a moment, leaving him with a look of painful vulnerability, like Napoleon has never seen him before. Napoleon’s stomach twists; he gazes up the stairs, too aware of just how precarious their situation is.

“Not hurt … anywhere,” Illya manages.

“We don’t understand,” she says, dropping down to his eye level.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Napoleon asks, and that, at least catches Illya’s attention. His head lolls in Napoleon’s direction, and after a moment, their eyes meet. 

“They wanted me to talk. About U.N.C.L.E.. I wouldn’t.”

“Naturally.”

“They said I would regret it.” Illya rolls his eyes at this. Napoleon smiles despite himself. “A man gave me an … injection.” Illya’s accent is thickening. He slides another few inches down the wall. “White coat.”

Gaby takes Illya’s big hand in her little one, and with her other hand, she rolls up his sleeve. There is a tiny dot of dried blood at the crook of his elbow and nothing else — she twists his hand to check his forearm but the rest of his skin is clean, unmarked. She pushes her bangs back, exhaling in frustration. He can tell she wants to walk it off, perhaps demand the flask she knows he’s carrying. But Illya’s head has sunk to one side, so she takes his chin in her hand and gently rights it. 

“Do you know what it is?” she asks him.

He shakes his head.

“What is it doing?” 

Illya’s eyes cut to one side. 

“It hurts,” he says simply.


	2. Chapter 2

They convene at the base of the stairs.

“How much longer do you think we have?” Her voice is low.

He checks his watch. He glances back at Illya.

“Eleven, maybe twelve minutes.”

“Do you have any idea what it is?”

He scrubs his face. Despite his former affiliation with the CIA, his experience with drugs is more limited than one might think.

“No,” he admits. They both watch Illya. Her finger is back at her mouth.

“So, what? Is he bleeding internally? Is he going to die?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s in pain. But who makes a drug that just produces pain?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats. 

She falls quiet.

“We should get him up,” he says.

She looks at him. After a moment, she nods.

-

But the more Napoleon thinks about it, the more he can appreciate the grim logic of their hypothetical drug. Put a man through a few days of unrelenting pain, and the anticipation of the next round might make him more likely to talk than any traditional methods. The lack of physical damage might actually be a long-term benefit: fingers and toes, after all, come in finite quantities.

He looks down at the bulky shape of his own pinkie and ring finger, joined by a splint and half a roll of white tape. It can be hard to remember pain, but he can vividly recall the intensity of it; how bile leapt up his throat and he had choked, sputtering, momentarily overwhelmed by competing agonies. He tries to imagine that feeling drawn out over hours, even days. What he might do to escape it.

That’s the difference between us, he thinks. In such a situation, Napoleon knows himself well enough to admit — internally, at least — that he would eventually look for a way out. But Illya is engineered to endure. His commitment to the mission is unconditional, and frankly, a bit frightening. Napoleon is never sure if Illya is running on courage, or sheer, lunatic obstinacy.

He crouches in front of Illya, studying his teammate. Illya’s arm rests across his knees, fingers clenched in the fabric of his trousers. His head is tipped back against the wall. The worst of it seems to have abated for now; Napoleon can see the muscles in his shoulder trembling, but his breathing has evened out.

“Hey,” Napoleon says, nudging the back of Illya’s hand.

Illya cracks an eye. 

“Time to get going, okay?” He offers his hand. Illya doesn’t move. 

Fine. So he feels worse than he’s willing to let on. Napoleon exchanges a glance with Gaby. They each stuff a hand in Illya’s armpit and heave. They get him halfway up, and of course Napoleon is doing most of the heavy lifting-

“Any time you’d like to pitch in, Peril,” he groans, prodding his leg with the toe of his shoe. That seems to rouse Illya, because he scrambles and gets his feet under him, and when they settle aright Illya is supporting at least some of own weight. Napoleon imagines they must look completely ridiculous. But they manage one shambling step, then two.

“You should not talk about people as though they aren’t there,” Illya grumbles, his breath warm and very close to Napoleon’s ear. Napoleon’s eyebrows rise. 

“You could hear us?” he asks.

“Not internal bleeding. Just hurt,” Illya asserts peevishly. 

_Hurt._ Conspicuously absent is the word pain, or acknowledgement that he is experiencing it. Not even “hurting”. In any other circumstance, Napoleon would find the stubbornness with which Illya defends his pride through the passive tense profoundly irritating. 

Right now, however? “Just hurt,” he agrees.

“Do not patronize me.” Illya puts a particularly Russian spin on 'patronize'. 

“Stairs,” Gaby interjects from somewhere underneath him. They each take a railing in hand and begin to climb, careening a bit from side to side. Illya manages the steps better than Napoleon might have wagered, until suddenly he doesn’t. 

Napoleon can feel the precise moment when the pain reasserts itself; Gaby must too because she makes a little noise of alarm. For one panicked second Napoleon is convinced all three of them are going to pitch backward and go rolling down the stairs. He tightens his grip on the railing. But amazingly, Illya’s weight detaches from his shoulder and he staggers up the last three steps on his own steam. 

They hurry up after him. Illya stands at the head of the stairs, both hands white-knuckling the railing. His head hangs between his arms. He almost congratulates Illya, but that sounds too glib, even for him. When he realizes his hand is hovering over Illya’s shoulder, he gives it one awkward pat.

Napoleon checks his watch. Seven minutes until the alarms come back. This, he thinks, is where things get tricky.

Silently, he opens the door into the lab. The room is dim save for one lamp on a desk in the far corner. The wall closest to them is bare, while its opposite is lined with big plate glass windows; they overlook a corridor he knows receives regular patrols. He also knows if he can succeed in navigating them two doors west, there’s an office with an exterior exit.

He checks his watch again. Their mission file stated that there are two minutes between patrol cycles, but he’s not sure where they are in that cycle. The tables spanning the length of the lab are quite tall, though, so they can probably provide adequate cover.

He turns back to his team. Illya is still upright. (His chest is now heaving with the effort of containing whatever fresh misery he is experiencing, and his hair has gone dark with sweat. But he is still upright.) His gaze shifts to Gaby.

“We have to go,” he tells her. 

Their Chop Shop Girl is capable and clever, and above all, reasonable. She knows there is no way but out. She presses her lips together into a thin line, but she nods.

That leaves Illya. Napoleon slips under one arm, and on his other side, Gaby follows suit. Together, they pry his fingers from the railing. Illya shakes his head and gropes for it again.

“Can’t,” he says. It comes out pained and tinged with desperation, and it’s that single, stupid word that threatens to undermine Napoleon’s resolve. It’s not that he would prefer to leave Illya to his suffering — Christ, no — but this thing is tearing him open, leaving him defenseless before them.

“We have to,” he says, willing Illya to understand.

They wait. Illya exhales a shuddering breath and nods. His hands shake badly as they come free from the railing. Gaby reaches for one. It curls into a fist around her slim fingers.

“We’ll get you out of this,” Napoleon blurts out. He’s not sure what compels him to do so, and Gaby’s head comes up sharply. Her expression is skeptical. But there’s something in the angle of her chin that looks like a dare: like she’s challenging him to not be full of shit, for once in his life.

-

The first steps are clumsy, but Napoleon gets them through the doorway and down behind the nearest table without further incident. Managing Illya while crouching proves to be significantly more difficult, and Gaby’s elbow catches the leg of a stool. It wobbles, thumping lightly against the edge of the table. They both scramble to set it right. Napoleon peers around a corner, but the corridor remains empty. 

“I don’t think-” he begins, but then Illya coughs, and swallows convulsively. Napoleon’s eyes widen in recognition; he tries to scramble away but his back hits cement.

“Not on my-“ But it’s too late: Illya vomits. It soaks the knees of Napoleon’s pants, dripping down past his socks, into his shoes. The sour smell of it fills the air.

He sits there for a moment, all urgency forgotten. His mind feels empty. He moves a foot; his shoe squelches. He stares at his U.N.C.L.E.-issue pants. Gaby reaches across Illya, patting blindly at Napoleon’s chest.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“Looking for a handkerchief.”

“Does this look like a three piece suit?”

Her hand abruptly withdraws.

“Sorry,” Illya croaks. He sounds sincere.

Napoleon can tell Gaby is glaring at him in the darkness. 

He gropes around on the table above until he alights on a thin cotton glove. “Here,” he says, passing it to Gaby. He suspects Illya is beyond caring at this point, but her hands move in the darkness, dabbing at his cheek. As if to prove his point, Illya’s head falls back bonelessly. 

Napoleon holds his breath. Maybe, _finally_ , Illya’s stubborn Soviet constitution has conceded to overwhelming force and he has lost consciousness. He shouldn’t, but — he pokes Illya. Illya mumbles something. Napoleon’s shoulders sag in disappointment. It takes him a moment to process that Illya has reverted to Russian.

“What did he say?”

Napoleon hesitates. He looks at Illya. He looks away.

“‘It’s too much’,” he says, very quietly.

In the dim light, he can just make out the line of Gaby’s jaw. 

“Let’s go,” she says. Together, they push off the wall and Illya makes a low, distressed noise. He feels heavier, and Napoleon tries to ignore that, too. If the pain is indeed a wave, Illya is surely coming to the crest of it.

They round the corner. They are no more than four feet from the door when Illya suddenly writhes against their grip. A choked sound is followed by a short, strangled cry, startlingly loud. Without thinking — and Napoleon certainly is not thinking how bad it must be, for Illya to be this far gone — he throws Illya against the table. Beakers rattle. His good hand covers Illya’s mouth, while his other arm braces against his collarbone. Gaby looks helplessly from Illya to him, but something beyond them catches her attention.

The guard is approaching.

Illya’s leg jerks between his own. Sounds are erupting from him, escaping from behind Napoleon’s hand. 

For some reason, Napoleon flashes to a memory of himself at age twelve. He is standing on a beach in California with his uncle; they are wearing swim trunks and the water is far colder than he would have ever reckoned. In four years, he’ll be lying about his age to enlist (his first long con) but at twelve he is on his first trip away from home. He is inexperienced and unsure, with a head full of boys’ adventure stories.

Perhaps those stories are what convince him to follow his uncle into the water. He wants to be brave and he wants to be strong, so he carries the big wooden board by himself and doesn’t allow himself to be discouraged the first dozen times he fails. But when he at last manages to climb atop his uncle’s board, when the wave picks him up and he feels the whole Pacific ocean surge beneath his feet, he isn’t in ecstasy, he is _terrified_ , and he thinks of riptides and manta rays and sharp, vicious rocks. 

He remembers the clarity of that fear, and the corresponding realization that he was riding the wave, and that the wave was out of his control. 

He was either going to drown, or he wasn’t.

He pushes his good hand into Illya’s mouth. “Illya, bite,” he hisses.

Illya bites.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Gaby was learning Russian, but maybe?? It was too garbled?? Or something. Yep.


	3. Chapter 3

Half a second later, Gaby’s hand claps across his own mouth. Her other hand digs into his shoulder; he’s not sure if it’s encouragement or a threat.

But he’s committed. He’s going to let Illya mangle his good hand because — well, why the hell not? Why should he ever want to pick a lock or palm a watch ever again? He’s a UNCLE agent, or he’s a CIA agent, but he’s certainly not what he is, not what he has been — so why not burn it all to the ground?

Stop being so goddamn melodramatic, he tells himself, stop making _this_ about _that_ , then Illya bucks underneath him and his canines break his skin and Napoleon forgets about all about words in general.

-

Distantly, he can feel blood rolling down his wrist, into his sleeve. He can feel Illya’s teeth, in the meat of him.

The pain is, of course, is unbearable. Unimaginable. It fills every corner of his consciousness. He’s had worse, surely; it’s just that he can’t remember it, can’t think, because half his hand feels like it’s caught in a meat grinder and his whole body is shaking with the effort of leaving it there. He can feel the noises Illya is making hum against his palm; he can feel the distinct shape of Illya’s teeth and Illya’s tongue; he can feel his own blood and something wetter, something that burns like salt when it hits his broken skin.

And then, all at once the pressure is gone, and he is thrown backward. The back of his skull hits the wall. His vision flares, flash-bulb bright. He blinks.

Illya stares at him. There is white around his eyes and blood on his teeth. His hair stands up at odd angles. He looks half-feral and yet Napoleon knows at once that the poison, or the drug, or whatever it is — it has loosened its grip, at least for now.

“I-” Illya starts. The word comes out convulsively, like a hiccup, or a sob.

Napoleon holds up his hand. He means for Illya to shut up, but the crescent of livid flesh catches the light from the corridor and they both flinch.

Planting his good hand — his now good bad hand — on the ground, he pushes himself up and peers over the table. The guard has passed. The corridor is empty. They should go now, while they have something like a minute, minute twenty, though Napoleon is honestly unsure of how much time is left on the clock … automatically, he goes to check his watch, but Gaby catches his arm and gently guides him back to the ground. His jacket rustles against the rough concrete; Illya’s long legs rearrange themselves to make room. They settle knee to knee, shin to shin. Illya feels warm and reassuringly solid.

Gaby holds his hand in her lap, carefully examining it. An arm length away, he can’t make out much in the dim light; it leeches the color from the wounds and makes the contours of his skin soft and inexact. He taps his wrapped fingers against the linoleum, trying to remember how they looked and felt in the hours between the hammer and the hotel room, but he comes up blank. Which is annoying. In the very least, broken bones ought to be useful for the sake of comparison.

Gaby rummages in her jacket. She produces a roll of gauze, followed by a tiny tin box. Balancing the gauze on her knee, she thumbs open the lid on the box and shakes out two stubby pills. Obediently, Napoleon puts his hand out. They go down dry.

Illya looks simultaneously murderous, and like he wants to crawl in a hole and die.

“It was necessary,” Napoleon says evenly.

“Foolish,” Gaby corrects. He shrugs to her: po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

He’s a bit startled that he means it. He had intended to placate Illya, maybe even take the high road for once, but as soon as the words leave his mouth it he realizes he’s really not angry or upset. In fact, he feels remarkably sanguine: if it heals, it heals. If there’s permanent damage, well, he’ll take to wearing driving gloves, or affect some other charming eccentricity. There could even be a story.

(It was in the war, he’ll say, or maybe he’ll be sitting in a hotel bar and he’ll catch his mark staring, and he’ll tell her with a straight face that it was a big Russian dog. A Borzoi.)

A slightly less optimistic part of himself is aware that his vanity is beside the point — that he may have just compromised a long list of skills that he (and UNCLE) has rather come to depend on. Gaby has her getaways and Illya has his violence, and locks (and larceny) have always been his wheelhouse. Without them, he’s what? A smooth talker with a war record and a penchant for German Expressionism? It’s a resume shared by every well-bred gentleman on the Continent.

And yet, it doesn’t _feel_ all that dire. He wiggles his first and second fingers experimentally — Gaby pauses to quirk an eyebrow in his direction — and though the movement sends bright sparks of pain shooting up his forearm, the fingers feel more or less undamaged. The doctor said his left hand will heal, too, and it doesn’t seem so ludicrous that he might learn to favor it. He did teach himself Japanese, after all.

He will adapt. He has faith in that much.

They both watch Gaby tie a neat knot in the gauze. For once, Napoleon has no doubt what Illya is thinking. When their eyes meet, he is seized by a strong urge to reach out and shake Illya's knee and tell him it’s alright — what’s a hand between friends or colleagues or whatever the hell they are? — but he knows how likely the words are to come out twisted into something flippant and mean. _Pathological insincerity_ , a handler had once called it. And he’d rather not pick a fight with Illya right now. So he quietly tucks his free hand into his lap and says nothing.

He worries, though. Whatever it is, it’s not done with Illya yet. His breathing is ragged. His fingers twitch at his side. He notices Napoleon notice.

“You must promise me, no matter what,” Illya begins.

“You look terribly serious,” Napoleon interjects. 

Illya’s eyes narrow. He leans forward.

“No matter what, _you will never do that again_ ,” he continues. His tone is sharp and cold, capable of drawing blood; Napoleon recognizes it well. But the smell of vomit still lingers in the air. Napoleon coughs stiffly. He considers pointing out to Illya that his delivery is somewhat undermined by present, uh, _circumstances_.

“Duly noted,” he says instead.

Illya opens his mouth as if to protest, but Napoleon cuts it short by shifting to the side. He disentangles his hand from Gaby and — with less wobbliness than he would have honestly credited himself with — gets to his feet. Leaning over the table, he catches a glimpse of the guard’s back. That leaves almost two minutes in the cycle.

He checks his watch. Three minutes until the alarm.

He curls his left hand around Illya’s bicep. “Up we go,” he says. Without waiting for Illya to agree, he tugs. Illya comes up half on his own, all glowering indignation. But Napoleon is surprisingly alright with indignation at this juncture — better that than the naked guilt on his face as Illya had stared at his hand.

“Could have done, myself,” he mutters.

“My apologies, are _you_ ready?” Napoleon asks, turning to Gaby.

“Does it matter if I’m not?”

“Afraid not,” he says with a tight smile. He feels a surge of fondness for her, her neat bun and chic boots. She is so small, and yet so strong.

He swings Illya’s arm over his back, then rolls his shoulders, testing the weight. Illya’s chest expands against him; his ribs press against his side. He chances a look back and finds Illya watching him intently. He catches Napoleon’s eye.

“Promise, Cowboy,” he growls.

Napoleon opens his mouth. Closes it.

He looks away. He tells himself it’s because he’s not in the business of making promises.

It’s certainly not because he would do it again. Or that he doesn’t regret it.


End file.
